From her home, Samia Ramsis holds a key chain bearing the face of the Virgin Mary as visitors outside come to look upon the spot where Egypt’s Coptic Christians believe Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus found refuge after fleeing Bethlehem.

Once crowded with Christians, Cairo’s Coptic quarter where she lives with her husband, Mounir, and two children is now home to fewer than 50 Christian families.

“We know many Christians have left,” said Mounir Ramsis, speaking not only about this quarter but about all of Egypt. “But we love this country and will stay until death.”

The Arab Spring uprisings that toppled secular dictatorships have unleashed long-suppressed freedoms that have allowed Islamic parties to gain a share of political power they have been denied for decades. Their rise is creating near-panic among ancient Christian communities that dot the Muslim world and predate Islam by centuries.

Christians in the Middle East, such as those who practice Coptic Christianity like the person pictured, are wary of the revolutions taking place in the region because of increased intolerance to their beliefs.

In Libya, Christians are uneasy as the powerful head of the Tripoli Military Council, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who once led an Islamic militia with links to al-Qaida, has said he plans to run for office in elections scheduled for April.

In Afghanistan, no new building permits have been issued for churches, and the last church open to the public was demolished over the summer. In Iraq, the Christian community has decreased by two-thirds since 2003 amid bombings of churches and assassinations of priests.

And Christians in Syria, where Muslims have risen up against President Bashar Assad, have been subjected to murder, rape and kidnappings in Damascus and rebellious towns, according to Christian rights groups, including Open Doors, which helps Christians facing persecution.

Many had hoped for better in an Arab movement that proponents said was about replacing tyrannies with democracies.

“The outlook is grim,” said John Eibner, CEO of the California-based human rights group Christian Solidarity International.

“If the current trajectory continues, it’s reasonable to think that within a generation these (Christian) communities will not look like functioning communities,” Eibner said. “They’ll look more like the once-flourishing Jewish communities” across the Arab world that are all but gone.

Nowhere is the irony more profound than in Egypt, where an estimated 8 million Christians live with more than 70 million Muslims.

Christians demonstrated alongside Muslims early last year to oust Hosni Mubarak. Before Mubarak’s overthrow, Christians had suffered from years of church burnings and murders at the hands of radical Muslims who want an Islamic state free of religious minorities. After the ouster, the military regime that has been running the country has refused to make any arrests in attacks on Christians.

Mina Bouls, 25, a Copt who fled to Philadelphia, recalls cowering with his mother in 1997 as a mob stoned the family home and chanted anti-Christian slogans. But the difference then was that Mubarak ordered the military to protect Christian communities and jailed extremists, Bouls said.

In October, Copts organized a protest in downtown Cairo over the authorities’ failure to investigate attacks, including the bombing of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day 2011 that killed 20 people. The military attacked the demonstrators and 17 Christians were run down and killed by military vehicles, according to Human Rights Watch.

Bouls wants to bring his family to the U.S. because he says he is petrified by the new society forming in Egypt. The first free elections in decades held in the past two months handed power not to moderates but to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafi candidates, who combined took nearly 70 percent of seats.

“If people try to rule the country with the Quran, with Shariah law, that means they look to us as second-class people,” Bouls said.

Christianity has existed in Egypt since the second century. The Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that seeks a nation run according to Quranic law, has said Egypt would respect the rights of religious minorities.

The Salafis, Muslim fundamentalists who want a complete application of Shariah law that generally denies equal rights to women and religious minorities, also say Copts are safe in Egypt.

“Even if there are Salafi leaders who proclaim Copts to be heretics, this does not mean that (the Copts) must be subjected to any religious or (legal) sanctions,” said Emad Abdel-Ghafour, head of the al-Nour party that won 25 percent so far in parliamentary elections.

Abanob Magdi lives near Egypt’s largest pyramid and says he is not optimistic about what lies ahead.

“I saw on TV the other day a Salafi saying that if they get in power, beaches will be divided for men and women and women will have to be veiled,” Magdi said as he walked through Coptic Cairo with friends.

Christians account for 4 percent of the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Despite being the birthplace of Christianity, the region now has the fewest number of Christians (13 million) and the smallest share of its population that is Christian of any other major geographic region, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The future of minorities in the emerging democracies of the Middle East “is a huge issue most vividly seen in Egypt and the Copts,” said California Rep. Howard Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It’s on our agenda as we figure out how to help these countries,” and their treatment of Christians and other minorities is a “red line” that will affect future aid.

(Oren Dorell and Sarah Lynch write for USA Today.)

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Police this week beat and arrested a church leader in Khartoum, sources told Compass.

Evangelist James Kat of the Evangelical Church of Sudan was arrested on Tuesday morning (Jan. 17), with officers beating him as they took him to a North Division police station, the sources said. He was released on bail the same day.

Police detained Kat, who lives at the church site, apparently because he was using the place as his home.

“They forced him to go with them to the police station,” an eyewitness said.

The arrest came amid increasing harassment of Christians by Sudanese authorities following the secession of South Sudan on July 9, 2011. In a Jan. 3 letter to Sudanese Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) leaders, Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments threatened to arrest pastors if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide the leaders’ names and contact information.

Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, warned “We have all legal rights to take them to court” in the letter. SPEC leaders said the government is increasingly trying to limit church activities.

Church Takeover

Another church leader was arrested on Monday (Jan. 16) in a SPEC church property dispute in which police and courts have been unjustly biased in favor of Muslims, Christian leaders said.

Officers arrested SPEC worker Gabro Haile Selassie, as he lives on the church property that has been transferred to a Muslim businessman in a disputed agreement; he has refused to be evicted without police providing him an official document indicating the basis for the action.

Selassie, who was released on bail after a few hours, said he fears being arrested again; police are threatening him and his family, warning them to evacuate the house on the church property in downtown Khartoum, so they are staying with friends, he said.

Police have already started demolishing the church compound fence, Selassie added.

“They will definitely demolish my house” he told Compass. “I am in great terror; I’m afraid to sleep in the house, because they may come again and arrest me. This is a clear form of terrorism against Christians.”

Armed police were deployed Sunday evening (Jan.15) to the site to take the property by force, as authorities are supporting Muslim businessman Osman al Tayeb’s efforts to take control of the plot as part of planned confiscation of church property, church leaders said. A court has ruled in favor of al Tayeb.

“The government is still trying to get involved in the affairs of the church by supporting people like Osman al Tyab,” said one church leader.

The church had signed a contract with al Tayeb stipulating the terms under which he could attain the property – including providing legal documents such as a construction permit and then obtaining final approval from SPEC – but those terms remained unmet, church officials said.

Church leader Deng Bol said that under terms of the unfulfilled contract, the SPEC would have turned the property over to al Tayeb to construct a business center on the site, with the denomination to receive a share of the returns from the commercial enterprise and regain ownership of the property after 80 years. SPEC leaders had yet to approve the project because of the high risk of permanently losing the property, he said, and they had undertaken legal action to recover it.

SPEC leaders said Muslims have taken over many other Christian properties through similar ploys.

Christians are facing growing threats from both Muslim communities and Islamist government officials who have long wanted to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian leaders told Compass. They said Christianity is now regarded as a foreign religion following the departure of 350,000 people, most of them Christians, to South Sudan since the secession.

Sudan’s Interim National Constitution holds up sharia (Islamic law) as a source of legislation, and the laws and policies of the government favor Islam, according to the U.S. State Department’s most recent International Religious Freedom Report.

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Christian workers are fleeing India’s Kashmir Valley after a sharia(Islamic law) court issued a “guilty verdict” against three Christian leaders, issued a fatwa against Christian schools and allegedly launched a door-to-door campaign to bring converts back to Islam.

The court, which has no legal authority, found the Rev. Chander Mani Khanna, pastor of All Saints Church in Srinagar, Dutch Catholic missionary Jim Borst and Christian worker Gayoor Messah guilty of “luring the valley Muslims to Christianity,” The Times of India daily reported on Dec. 19.

The three had already left the region apparently due to rising tensions.

Headed by Kashmir Grand Mufti Bashir-ud-din Ahmad, the sharia court also “directed” the state government to take over the management of all Christian schools in the region, the daily added.

“I fled with my wife and children, as I was not feeling safe in Srinagar,” a Christian worker from Kashmir told Compass on condition of anonymity. “A group of Muslims visited my house twice, threatening my parents with a social boycott if they failed to produce me.”

The source said he and some of his friends left Srinagar, the summer capital of northern India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, a few days before the sharia court ordered three Christian workers to leave Kashmir Valley, in the Muslim-majority region of the state.

Another source told Compass that some men had visited his family and those of his friends in Srinagar asking for their whereabouts.

“They had the names of all my local Christian friends when they came to my parents’ house, and they asked for the names of more Christians in the area,” he said. “Muslim men are going to every believer’s home and asking their families to ensure that their children return to Islam. They are using Islamic scriptures to persuade the families, warning that if their members do not reconvert their households will face ostracism.”

The source added that those who have fled may not be able to return to their homes for at least a year.

“We have our family with children – where should we send our kids to school?” he said. “Where should we stay? We don’t have any answers.”

He said the men who are visiting Christians’ homes are sent from the many committees the sharia court has formed to prevent conversions. The mufti could not be contacted for comment.

Separately, well-known Muslim clergyman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq recently launched a website, www.tahafuzeiman.org, entitled “Council for Protection of Faith,” for a committee formed in November 2011, “after numerous cases of apostasy came into light” and “to thwart nefarious designs of pervasive forces and the deep-rooted conspiracy of making youth apostate and defectors by giving them concessions and benefits secretly.”

Besides the “guilty verdict” against Pastor Khanna, Borst and Messa, mufti deputy Nasir-ul-Islam reportedly said an investigation against Parvez Samuel Kaul, principal of a local Christian missionary school, was underway.

The court also ordered all Christian schools to teach Islam and other faiths.

“Given the Muslim majority character of the valley, the Muslim students should be taught Islam, and daily prayer written by Syed Mohammad Iqbal should also be sung in the morning prayers,” Nasir-ul-Islam told The Times of India.

Muslim leaders began to rally against Christians after a video posted on YouTube last October showed Muslim youth being baptized at the All Saints Church. Soon thereafter, the sharia court “summoned” Pastor Khanna to explain why Muslim youth were converted and whether they were offered money.

State police arrested Pastor Khanna on Nov. 19 on charges of hurting religious sentiments of Muslims by “converting” their youth. He was released on bail on Dec. 1. The court later summoned Borst, but he asked the mufti to meet him at his church site. The mufti declined. The court found Christian worker Messah “guilty” because he was also seen with Pastor Khanna in the video.

The All India Christian Council warned that the sharia court’s verdict could encourage extremist elements to indulge in violence.

“The church does not accept as genuine any conversion brought about by fraud or force,” Dr. John Dayal, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement.

He pointed out that a fact-finding team that went to Srinagar late last year found no evidence of force or fraud in baptisms. “Each baptism has been proven to be voluntary.”

There are only about 400 Christians in the Kashmir region, with 300 of them living in Srinagar, according to the fact-finding team.

The council also said the Christian community did not accept the jurisdiction of the sharia courts anywhere in India.

The sharia court was careful in its “verdict,” one of the area sources observed, noting that the three who were ordered to leave are not permanent residents of Kashmir. He questioned the fatwa against Christian schools.

“The court issued a fatwa against Christian schools because some business-minded Muslims want greater control over these schools, which are known for providing quality education,” he said.

Local residents saw an element of politics behind the tensions. The fact-finding team, which visited Kashmir from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2, learned from local people that some extremist groups and other vested interests had been seeking to use the issue of conversion in their confrontation with the state government, political parties and moderate Islamic groups.

They were “looking to score political points against each other, and any excuse was good enough to foment trouble,” one resident said. The state government apparently sided with the extremists to preempt any unrest, local residents told the fact-finding team.

While most Muslims in Kashmir are peaceful adherents of Sufi Islam, some are influenced by Wahhabism and are extremists.

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When Malik Pauloos of Bhakkar district, Punjab Province finally decided to trust a close relative with the secret that he had left Islam for Christianity, there was no question in his relative’s mind that Pauloos’ relationship with the family was over.

The family had been custodian of an Islamic shrine, the Pir Syed Karamat Shah in Kot Islam, for three generations. Though Pauloos had moved to Karachi, the capital of Sindh Province, 20 years ago to start a scrap business, he had continued fulfilling his duty to prepare the shrine for annual pilgrimages – but after he withdrew from it over time upon his conversion, shrine leaders were asking pointed questions about his adherence to Islam.

“I told him [the relative] to get the shrine people off my back, because I did not want to keep any point of contact with my past life,” Pauloos, 36, told Compass. “Although shocked, my relative said that he would first try and make my family understand the situation, and then they could figure out a way of letting me walk away peacefully.”

Pauloos did not realize that, beyond disowning him, his family would file a police complaint against him because – as a murtad or apostate deserving death – he was said to have committed “blasphemy.” With authorities’ help, family members are trying to track him down, he said.

Days before his baptism in September, a Pashtun scrap dealer heard about his conversion. A couple of Christians the dealer and Pauloos knew were sitting at the dealer’s shop when they started discussing the United States, whose relations with Pakistan have hit new lows in the past few months.

“The Pashtun man proudly claimed that many Americans were converting to Islam, but he was in for a big surprise when the Christians told him that I, a [formerly] devout Muslim, have been actively participating in church activities and had recently converted,” Pauloos said.

The Pashtun trader immediately conveyed the information to Pauloos’ family, and he received a call from one of his cousins, an engineer, who asked him to return to Punjab and explain.

“I told him I could not come back because of my business in Karachi, but he kept insisting that I should return to Bhakkar and deny reports that I had converted,” Pauloos said. “He then started threatening me that if I didn’t return home within three days, they would spread the news and even put the police after me on blasphemy charges. I told him that the threats were meaningless to me. He put down the phone, but before doing so he said that I would be responsible for the consequences.”

The next day his father put up a notice in local newspapers disowning him, he said.

“I called my cousin and told him that now that they had disowned me, they should know that I had indeed become a Christian and would not renounce Christ even if they killed me,” he said.

Pauloos said that he left his business last month and came to Punjab, where he has been traveling from one city to another sharing his experience of Christ.

Baptized in September after spending more than 10 years learning about the Christian faith, Pauloos said he does not regret trusting in Christ as Savior even though he has lost a comfortable life and a successful business and his Muslim family and friends are in hot pursuit to “kill the apostate.”

Family members had begun to grow suspicious when they heard that he was regularly seen in the company of Christian pastors and was avoiding the Islamic shrine and its spiritual head, Baba Raees.

“In fact, Raees had also expressed concern over my lack of interest in the shrine’s activities over the years and had asked one of my cousins to investigate why I wasn’t taking his calls,” Pauloos said. “Fearing that my disclosure would imperil the lives of all Christians connected with me, I told my family that I was keeping contact with the Christians to understand their faith, and that this was merely an education for me. I did not want my family to know that I had lost confidence in Islam and wanted to walk away from the faith of my elders.”

In an attempt to dispel the impression that he had become “murtad,” he visited the shrine one final time in 2010.

“Raees and other people made repeated attempts to judge whether I was still a Muslim or had renounced my faith, but I gave them the same reason that I had given to my family,” he said. “In September this year, I got baptized in Faisalabad. The whole affair was kept a secret because of the security situation in Pakistan.”

A relative told him that his family and Muslims associated with the shrine were using their influence to send the police after him, he said.

“They have publicly announced that I would have to pay for my ‘crime,’ but even death will not deter me from giving up my Christian walk,” he said.

When he told his Christian friends of the threats on his life, many suggested that he relocate to another country, he said, but he told them he would neither leave Pakistan nor yield to the demands of hostile Muslims.

“I will serve the Lord in my country even if it means putting my life on the line,” he said.

Haunted Journey

Stories abound of Muslims coming to Christ through dreams, but Pauloos’ journey began with nightmares.

They began haunting him in 2000, and his health deteriorated as he tried all possible remedies. Increasingly going without sleep, his condition worsened as he spent several nights fearing his nightmares might turn into reality. One day he shared his problem with a Christian acquaintance, who suggested that he visit a pastor and request prayer.

“I went to meet the pastor in Karachi and shared my problem with him,” he said. “He listened intently and then prayed for me. Before he started praying, he asked me if I had faith that Christ could help me. As Muslims, we hold Jesus Christ in high esteem as a prophet and also believe that He performed miracles. I said yes, and the pastor started praying. As he was praying, I felt as if someone was brushing off the dirt from me … I started breathing!”

Before he left, the pastor, whose name is withheld for security reasons, shared some verses of the Bible with him.

“He told me things about Christ that I had never heard or read before and said that I could come visit him whenever I needed help,” he said, adding that he went to the pastor two or three more times for prayer, and his condition began to improve.

Pauloos said that he did not have any nightmares for a year.

“In 2001, I again started suffering from the dreaded nightmares and shared this with the pastor,” he said. “He invited me to his church. It was the first time I had participated in any Christian worship. His congregation welcomed me warmly and gave me immense respect. Then they all prayed for ‘their Muslim brother,’ and this gesture further attracted me toward Christ.”

Increasing contact with the Christians left him “greatly inspired,” he said, and when he found himself on a road in Haripur to meet with an uncle who had been in an accident in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, he felt himself drawn to a small church building, he said.

“As if on cue, my feet started heading towards that direction,” he said. “I met the church’s pastor and shared with him my experiences in Karachi.”

The pastor, whose name is withheld for security reasons, gave him his first Bible, he said, and he attended his church service a few times.

“But then word about this spread in the city, and the pastor requested I stop going there, because it could endanger the lives of Christians living in the area,” Pauloos said. “He apologized for having to ask me to stop, but I told him that I understood the consequences the congregation would have to face and left the city after a few days.”

Back in Karachi, Pauloos said he started reading the Bible regularly and, in order to better understand it, also initiated contacts with other pastors. He recalled one pastor, whose name is withheld for security reasons, who came from the same caste as his.

“He offered a special prayer for me, asking God to guide me as I searched for the truth,” Pauloos said.

He said that in June, he traveled to Iran and Armenia on business, carrying his Bible the whole time.

“In Tehran I strongly felt that the time had come for me to get water baptism and start a new life in Christ,” he said. “I decided that I would take water baptism as soon as I got back.”

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A Christian couple is facing false charges of theft after police in Abbottabad severely beat the pregnant woman and her husband for three days when they refused to confess, they told Compass.

Salma Emmanuel was taken to a hospital in critical condition on Nov. 7, the life of her unborn child also threatened, she said.

In Abbottabad, 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Islamabad in the Hazara region of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, the 30-year-old Emmanuel and her husband, Emmanuel Rasheed, a 39-year-old TV repairman, said that they were inexplicably arrested after the Muslim woman who employed Emmanuel as a maid had allowed the Christian woman to temporarily store some of her jewelry at her employer’s house.

Emmanuel told Compass by phone that police arrested them on Nov. 5, keeping her at the Women’s Police Station for interrogation and her husband at the City Police Station – where they told Rasheed he would be released, he said, if he renounced Christ and became a Muslim.

Emmanuel said that upon reaching the police station, an inspector identified only as Nazia and two other policewomen started punching and kicking her and striking her with batons, demanding that she “confess her crime.”

“I begged them for mercy, pleading that I am five months pregnant, but they continued their merciless onslaught for over three hours,” she said. ‘They continued to try to force me to admit to the crime, even threatening that they would kill my baby, but I refused to confess a false allegation.”

She said that after three days, when she was “on the verge of dying,” police called her brother-in-law to the station and told him to take her to a hospital.

“I had complete faith in Jesus and trusted that He would rescue me and Emmanuel from this great problem,” she said. “It was our faith that kept us going …this was the first time either of us had ever encountered the police, let aside being charged in any case, so you can imagine what we underwent.”

Emmanuel was treated at Benazir Shaheed Hospital, where doctors began efforts to save her and the fetus.

Although the doctor on duty confirmed that her body bore marks of severe violence, Deputy Superintendent of Police Aziz Afridi denied that police had tortured her. After reports of the violence reached local media, however, the deputy inspector general of Haraza Division, Dr. Naeem Khan, ordered an investigation.

As Emmanuel was fighting for her life at the hospital, Rasheed was undergoing a similar treatment at the City Police Station.

“The police beat me up mercilessly,” he said. “They kept on asking me to confess to the burglary, but I did not submit to their pressure. It was Eid al-Adha [Muslim Festival of Sacrifice, a three-day public holiday in Pakistan] on Nov. 7, and their torture continued during those days.”

Rasheed said police tried to convert him to Islam while he was in custody.

“A policeman offered to remove the theft charges against me if I was willing to renounce Christianity and convert to Islam,” he said. “I told him that no matter what happens, I will not renounce my faith, nor would I confess the false charges made against us.”

Emmanuel said she started working as a maid at the home of Ghazala Riaz around a year ago. She was one of four servants who returned to their homes each day after finishing their tasks. On Oct. 30, she said, she had gone to a jeweler to get her gold ornaments (about 100 grams) polished in preparation for her brother’s wedding when Riaz phoned her in need of some work at the house.

“I went straight to madam’s home, and before starting my work, I asked her to keep my jewelry in her cupboard for safety, and that I would take it home the next day,” Emmanuel said. “Madam put the jewelry in her locker, and I returned home after ending my chores, without even the slightest idea of what was going to happen next.”

Emmanuel said that at about midnight, Riaz called her and told her that there had been a burglary at the house, with 900,000 rupees (US$10,095), 300 grams of gold ornaments, including Emmanuel’s jewelry, and a laptop missing.

The Christian couple rushed to Riaz’s house, where police had already arrived.

“Madam told the police that my ornaments were also among those taken by the burglars. The police recorded my statement and also asked questions of my husband,” she said.

The couple has three children – the oldest 12, the youngest 5 – so one of the parents stays home with them when the other goes to work, Rasheed said.

“The police allowed us to go home after three or four hours, but in the afternoon they raided our house and took both of us into custody on an informal report,” Rasheed said, adding that police told them that the Muslim family suspected that they were involved in the burglary.

“My wife and I protested at this false allegation and asked the police to consider the fact that we had also suffered a great loss, but they wouldn’t listen to us,” he said.

Police released them on the evening of Nov. 1 after trying various tactics to get a favorable statement, Rasheed said.

“In the meantime, the police obtained a search warrant of our house and combed through our belongings, but they could not find anything from our home,” he said.

On Nov. 5, under pressure from an army colonel related to the Muslim family, police again picked up the couple from their home, they said. The three days of beatings followed.

“We may be poor, but our poverty has never shaken our faith in God,” Rasheed said. “He has always provided for our needs, and I knew He would release us from this misery because we are innocent.”

He happily told how police were unable to find any evidence against the couple, leading to his release from jail on bail on Nov. 17. His wife’s bail hearing has been set for Dec. 8.

The burglary charges are not the only test of the couple’s faith. Emmanuel, who was also working as a child-minder in a local school besides working as domestic help, has lost both her jobs. When Rasheed was jailed, his employer immediately found a replacement.

“I used to earn about 7,000 rupees (US$80) per month, while Salma used to earn around 5,000 rupees (US$56) per month,” he said. “At the moment both of us are jobless and are being looked after by our relatives … They are the ones who pooled money to hire us a lawyer, otherwise it would have been difficult for us to fight this case.”

As Emmanuel heals, she said her heart goes out to those wrongly accused of crimes.

“Madam and her family did not name any of their Muslim servants in the investigation, but we stand vindicated after the police could not find any evidence against us,” she said. “Even though I’ve lost my gold ornaments, which I had saved for my daughter, I have faith that God will compensate for our loss.”

Christian rights advocate Napoleon Qayyum told Compass this was not the first incident in which a Christian maid has been illegally detained and tortured in Pakistan, which is more than 95 percent Muslim. Last year in April, a 14-year-old Christian maid, Sumera Pervaiz, was illegally detained and tortured by an air force officer in Islamabad, he said. No action was taken against the family, he added, because of their influential status.

“I wrote a letter to the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which was also published in the press, requesting him to take notice of the sad incident, but there has been no response from the country’s apex court,” Qayyum said. “It seems that, like other government institutions, the judiciary is also ignoring the rights of minorities.”

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